Crafting and trading mechanics - player interaction

[Koltes]

IMHO, current economy at its current state is very dull and has little future.

Economy mechanics should boost the gameplay, not slowing it down.

 

For your consideration as follows.

 

 

 

1. Crafting

 

1.1 Needs professions. No person could ever build a ship ground up all by himself. You must work with the other specialists to craft a complete ship. The professions would give you ability to specialize in specific areas. Carpenters, cannon manufacturers, sail manufacturers etc etc. Each have their own tricks and qualities. Any one person can only pick up 2 professions. One primary and one secondary. Primary profession is the specialized one, which means crafter can MAKE his own BPs. Anyone using his BPs will have this crafter's name on the end product.
This boosts player interaction, communication and economy.

There should be a profession like ship decorator that specializes in ship customization.

 

1.2 Labor hours. Crafter hires full time workers. They are paid everyday so it is ongoing cost to keep them. Larger shipyard, factory etc allows to hire more workers. Each worker gives 8 hours per real day. To increase labor hours need to upgrade factory and hire more workers which also will increase ongoing salary. Each crafting item, material, ship whatever have two options to use hired worker or hire contractors. Hiring contractors cost no labor hours but cost 10 times more gold.

 

1.3 Ships have no extra "lives". This will stop players getting into 1st rates after 2 weeks of playing. This is ridicules. Players will sail only what they can afford. Then you can remove the ability to sail 3rd, 2nd and 1st rates from pirates. Ships of 5th, 4th rate will become more valuable. Right now its like they don't exsist. Soon as you got your first 500k you skip 5th rate so fast it like it never existed.

 

 

 

2. Trading

 

2.1 There needs to be professions dedicated to trading. We need a profession that allows to trade distantly like Pigeon Post that allows trader to see market prices and stock availability at distant ports and higher the skill the larger the area it covers. Then secondary profession "Trading Connections" allows to make deals remotely.

 

2.2 Anyone needs to be able to see his assets in his warehouse in other ports without leaving leaving his current port.

 

2.3 The Shipping profession gives ability to create remote delivery contracts to deliver player goods from port A to port B.

Works like this: John wants to move 10k Iron Ore from Port Antonio to Port Tumbado. He creates delivery contract and sets payout fee on successful delivery. The system automatically sets security bond based on contained goods average market value price. His Iron Ore is packed into container and ready for delivery. Peter reads delivery jobs and decided to pick it up and deliver it to Tumbado. He pays the security bond (that is lost if the ship is sunk and container is lost). On the way to Tumbado Peter got attacked by the pirate who capped his ship and got his goods. On Peter's ship pirate finds contract documents that have delivery information such as destination port and contract number. Pirate decided to deliver the goods himself which he does. John gets his delivery in Tumbado. The pirate gets paid for delivering the container. Peter  has lost his ship, but got his security bond back because container has been delivered.

 

 

 

Feel free to evaluate and comment

Edited August 29, 2016 by koltes

[Skully]

Today I'm a Large Carriage crafter, tomorrow a Tobacco Trader and the day after a Privateer.

Tried Treasure Hunter for a day, didn't like the competition.

I like my freedom of choice.

[Hethwill]

Hear hear.

[Mulcaster]

There are some good ideas here which try to address a basic problem the game has had since the beginning--what is the role of the player.  All players are captains, but also everything else from diplomat to blacksmith.  And until an admiralty structure is developed, all captains are de facto privateers. Leaving aside the question of having actual navies, the economy needs a lot of work.  Instead of various professions, it might be better to think of players as owners.  As owners players hire people to do the work while they manage the operation.  This should take both money and both game and real time.  Labour hours should be abandoned for actual duration.  As was suggested on another thread, there should be a variety of production buildings, making meaningful supply chains.  Labour and maintenance costs should be constant, and bankruptcy a real possibility (right now there is no risk in economic activity--lack of risk makes for dull play).  To do this, the economy needs to be based on supply and demand and be player run.

[jodgi]

"Player run economy" does sound nice...

But is it viable? Do we have the critical mass of PVE loving players to make it work?

I'm a lvl 50 crafter but I only portclick when I really have to or want to help buddies.

I still work under the assumption that the majority of players coming to this game are, first and foremost, fun-loving fighters.

[KrakkenSmacken]

There are some good ideas here which try to address a basic problem the game has had since the beginning--what is the role of the player.  All players are captains, but also everything else from diplomat to blacksmith.  And until an admiralty structure is developed, all captains are de facto privateers. Leaving aside the question of having actual navies, the economy needs a lot of work.  Instead of various professions, it might be better to think of players as owners.  As owners players hire people to do the work while they manage the operation.  This should take both money and both game and real time.  Labour hours should be abandoned for actual duration.  As was suggested on another thread, there should be a variety of production buildings, making meaningful supply chains.  Labour and maintenance costs should be constant, and bankruptcy a real possibility (right now there is no risk in economic activity--lack of risk makes for dull play).  To do this, the economy needs to be based on supply and demand and be player run.

 

 

 

 

 

Admin has often called this game a sand box.  Sandbox by its nature means that every player has the ability to use all the tools to do whatever they like, as opposed to an RPG where you assume the role of a specific race/class/character/style etc.  

 

The advantage of sandbox from a balance perspective is that it reduces the want/need/desire to build multiple accounts. Why have two accounts that have identical abilities, may as well just work on one?

 

The disadvantage is that everyone is a super person, able to do many things, without the ability to distinguish one player from another by game mechanics. This leaves distinction down to player choice if they elect to specialize, or by skill because they have better/worse skills than average.

 

They are two very different philosophies of game development, and neither is right or wrong in their own right.  Like it or not, NA is at it's core a sand box. That's how it's design started, and that's the direction it keeps heading.

 

If you want an RPG you will have to look somewhere else, because the two models do not mix well.

Edited August 29, 2016 by KrakkenSmacken

[KrakkenSmacken]

i like the idea of more players working on one ship and specialities on ship building. but rather then limiting the amount of specialities skils you can have just make them hard to gain or hard to level up in so when you put alot of time in the game you can have alot of skills in the end ,this is more player friendly then just deny them the skils. 

 

also this system wil introduce tonnes more products and items in the game ! wich wil give a new in-depth to crafting.

 

Part of the problem with "more skills" is in fact how few in number the actual skills to build a ship are.  

 

They did one hell of a good job with the construction parts and quantities in this game, as they relate to how they were done in the past.  I have seen them post some of the historical ship yard construction notes as reference to both build costs, material required, and labor hours needed.  They would have to look somewhere else for the kind of "skill" scale you are looking for.

 

One place it could happen is in the BP drops.   If a person had to devote X number of hours, or break apart X amount of ships to learning a BP, rather than the current RNG luck of the draw model, then there would be a reason to branch off skill wise. I previously posted a model like the McDonald's prize pieces, where ships always dropped a part of the blueprint, and you had to gather all the different parts to make a full BP.

 

Add in a progression leveling so that in order to craft in the notes that upgrade a ship, you also needed to have upgraded your skills in crafting that particular type of ship, then that would be a more realistic model for "skill" progression.

 

For example you have to build 5 basic Snows before you can build a Common version. Currently it is simply make an extra level and you can upgrade the ship. The barrier to entry is astonishingly small.

 

I don't think they would be breaking their word to keep all XP since EA launch intact, if they were to add that additional layer of skill requirement to each ship type. Then getting the basic experience and BP would be the first step on making the epic GOLD modified Victory, and greatly reduce the amount of them that are available.

 

They could also add in a similar requirement for the ship modules, so that you had to craft say 5 basic Rum Rations before you could make the Common variety.

 

That would also reduce the current proliferation of all exceptional, all the time, of every component possible.

Edited August 29, 2016 by KrakkenSmacken

[themule08]

I came back to the game becuae of the economy..i love fighting..but if that is yhe only good part of the game I will find a new game.

If I am going to spend my free time playing a game..have to be excited about all aspects not just one.

[Skully]

Don't get me wrong here, but you have to keep in mind that Trading, Crafting and Ship Building are essentially supporting mechanics to the primary of Combat. I'm not saying that those activities will/should not be fun, but rather they will never get to the same level of detail as Combat.

The sandbox already provides the tools for player cooperation. As Fasti likes to say, we can churn out a Victory a day. Not because we abuse or are OP, but because we organize it into a closed economy. We don't suffer from any game induced economic barriers.

However for casual players to enjoy those same benefits and come to a similar level of cooperation, the game needs to become more aligned to the principals of "Perfect Competition".

For that I'm writing up the Economic Patch Proposal through: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15098-economics-patch-proposal/

Take the 10k Iron Ore from Port Antonio to Tumbado as an example. First of all you start of at a false premise, a trader will only transport the good if he receives the difference between the market value of Iron at Antonio vs the value at Tumbado. Hence you might as well sell at Antonio and buy back at Tumbado, because truthfully you don't care who does the shipping. This however is blocked by the 5% contract cost. A transaction cost that goes against the Perfect Competition principals.

The alternative is advertising your need to setup a private contract. In this regard the game is totally unhelpful, but we also can't truly help from the outside. The outside has no knowledge of your location, Nationality, ship availability. Unless you are in a Clan that has logistics officers.

So I see two things are needed, at least the mini economic patch:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/6184-trading-and-economy-feedback/?p=292945

Plus means of advertising your presence and needs in-game:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14897-players-who-enjoy-building-a-online-community/?p=276759

[themule08]

Yes all the points you bring up would make for a great economy once filled with players. Cut the huge profits from tobacco and sugar and people will start producing. Also cut labor hours from producing, as of right now it is more cost effective to buy then produce.

Charge money for labor to get resources from your buildings..so cost would be labor plus raw cost.